Wait For Me

By: Riley

Summary- Big Time Rush is excited to be able to go on vacation to Australia. They imagined surf, sun, and sand while getting to hang out in paradise. They expected award shows, appearances, concerts, and getting a peak into a life of what the future of being in the music industry had for them; perks, perks, and more perks. What they didn't expect was finally being able to understand the life that's been following their friends like a shadow, the things they tried to keep a secret, and the things that are bursting at the seams.

Chapter One: Warm Welcome

"I wonder what first class is like."

Kendall's eyes widened to an almost psychotic level as he lowered his hockey magazine from his face. He turned to face his little sister so quickly that the man sitting in the aisle next to them looked over in concern. Probably thinking that Kendall would actually make good on his mental threat to murder his little sister.

"Katie! Would you stop saying that every hour! It's starting to drive me crazy!" He cried.

Katie shot him a frustrated glance in response. "It's a fifteen hour flight, there's nothing on the in-flight entertainment that I haven't already watched, the plug in my seat stopped working, and my iSlab is dead! What do you expect me to do?"

"Go to sleep! And stop trying to sneak your way into first class." Now Kendall was barely paying attention to the magazine—of which he had read about three times already—and tossed it to the tray in front of him. He ran his hands over his face.

"I can't sleep," Katie said. "These seats are uncomfortable, I have no leg room—"

"—Join the club," Kendall muttered. He shifted, moving his legs to stretch out into the aisle. Maybe that'd keep the people that continued to line up at the bathroom from leaning into his space. There were only so many times people could and lean on his head before it got annoying. And it got annoying within the first two hours of the flight, having left LA the night before.

"—and Mom is still asleep so I can't move."

Kendall and Katie looked over at their mother. She in the last seat in their three-chaired aisle. With a neck pillow resting on her shoulders, an eye-mask pulled down over her eyes, ear-plug s, and a blanket pulled up her shoulders, she was the picture of comfort.

Kacy Knight* made sure that she had all of her supplies to keep her asleep and warned them that If she was woken up early she would kill them. Kendall had seen the look on her face and noticed she hadn't woken up whenever food was brought by. She was serious.

And he didn't have a death wish so he wasn't going to come close to waking her up.

"Well, we're…" Kendall reached out and pressed the buttons on the screen in front of him. He navigated to the map and grinned, seeing the time in the corner. The image of the airplane that had tracked them across the sky was nearing land mass. "Only thirty minutes away!"

"Thank God!" Katie said. She leaned back in her seat, smiling in content.

The smile faded when their mother leaned over and rested her head on Katie's shoulder. She smacked her lips, growing comfortable once more.

Kendall laughed along with his sister. Then he felt his stomach lurch as the plane shifted to the side.

They were landing soon.

He couldn't wait.

"Logan?" Carlos reached out his hand and shoved his passenger card into Logan's face. Logan jumped, his concentration was broken. "Am I supposed to put my Palm Woods address or my Minnesota address?"

Logan sighed. He dropped his hands to the tray he was using to write on with a light slap. "You use the Palm Woods address; we've been living there for about three years now."

"But it's not the same address on my passport," Carlos said. He jabbed his pointer finger into the passport to prove it. "My passport has home as my address. I mean, we don't know when the band is going to end and—"

"—don't joke about that," James said. He sat in the aisle, rapidly clicking the top of his pen. Logan gritted his teeth at the sound. "You'll curse us and I'll have to go solo quicker than my plan." He smiled. "Not that that's a bad thing." Logan turned and glared at him and he held up his hands as he looked over his own passenger card. "I'm just saying."

"Guys, will you please let me focus? I want to make sure I do this right," Logan said.

He paused as there was a slight bump of turbulence before it leveled out once more. He leaned forward and looked over the questions. Name; check. Address; check. Passport number; check. Flight number, intended address…Then he looked over the rest of his card, everything seemed to be filled out okay. He turned it over to fill out the back, neatly signed his name on both sides.

With a satisfied smile Logan re-capped his pen and placed it neatly on the tray. He folded his hands and sighed in content before making the mistake of looking over at James's and Carlos's passenger cards. His heart nearly exploded from the shock.

"Carlos, you're supposed to use a pen!" He cried.

A snort escaped Carlos's lips as he continued to write on the passenger card with a pencil. Then he stopped and erased. "What would that do if I mess up?"

A vein throbbed in Logan's forehead. Much like it did when he had to sit through hours of bad plays Camille dragged him to. He hated to see them but he liked spending time with his girlfriend. Being able to sit through a few hours of mind-numbing pain was always worth it. But when he first arrived the pain would come back red hot.

"It's to make sure you don't change your answers so you don't end up detained at customs!" Logan spat.

"Ohhh." Carlos tapped his pencil against his chin. "Kind of like Bitters's rules for the Palm Woods. No Bloodshed."

"No Partying," James said. A bitter tone to his voice.

"No Loud Music."

"No Ball Playing."

"No Pool Parties."

"No Playing Hockey in the Lobby."

"No Stealing From the Snack Machine."

"No Karate in the Lobby."

"No Loitering in the Lobby after 9.00 P.M."

James snorted. "And the new one, no social gathering. Does he not understand that we're teenagers and if we don't socially gather we'd die?"

Logan made a face. "That was your fault!" He still couldn't get the sound of Bitters's and Mama Knight's yelling out of his head once they both found out about the party that night.

Kendall got it especially bad for him and Jo having locked Bitters in the party box because Mama Knight 'thought she taught him better than that'. Then, to Logan's surprise, he got it for having had gone along with the party in the first place despite Mama Knight being clear about having no parties.

Logan smiled a little. It had been good to rebel for once in his life and not only that, but it had cemented his feelings for Camille at the time and things had worked out great there. Not perfectly, there were a few bumps in the road with his feelings for someone else, but things were great now.

Then Carlos and James had both been screamed at by Bitters and Mrs. Knight. They were relegated to having to work with the janitorial team to clean the entire Palm Woods. They still claimed it was worth it and continued to do so when it was brought up again.

Logan snapped to attention as James turned back to his passenger card and said, "Goods obtained overseas…nope!"

"Yep!" Logan insisted.

A smug chuckle escaped James's lips. He said in his 'that's your jealousy talking voice', "It's not even close to $400 dollars."

A pained squeal nearly escaped Logan's throat. How had he ended up being the only sane one out of all of them? "That's Australian dollars! In the US that adds up to be about $290 dollars!"

"My hair products are worth much more than that!"

"Give me those!" Logan snatched up his friends' passenger cards and moved to fix them. He leaned over the cards and frantically started to scribble over them. "Do you know how long customs takes? Security? I don't want to end up on some sort of a list because you can't fill out some stupid card."

Carlos and James looked at Logan then at each other with the same expressions of concern on their faces. Carlos placed his hand on Logan's shoulder. "I think out of everyone, you need this trip the most. Even more than Gustavo and everyone knows nothing can help Gustavo."

Logan chuckled to himself. Gustavo hadn't particularly wanted to go on the trip. He was talked into it by Kelly who not only wanted to go but deserved a break as well. Plus, they were able to travel in first class where they'd be pampered and Gustavo could verbally abuse the stewardesses rather than his 'dogs' throughout the entire fifteen hour flight.

Even when arriving at LAX Gustavo showed how irritated he was. He hated the crowds, hated that the airport lounge's WI-FI wasn't up to its standards of speed, hated how much construction was going on, hated how dirty everything looked, and hated how they couldn't take a jet. And on and on and on.

"You think him being up in first class is why the plane keeps dipping?" James joked.

Logan laughed along with the others. "He's complained about everything so far, it wouldn't surprise me if he grabbed the controls and tried to fly the plane himself."

Going through customs didn't take long. Exchanging their money into Australian money didn't take long. Getting everyone gathered outside the airport to be picked up didn't take long. What took a long time was getting Mrs. Knight awake so that they could get their things together and off the plane, getting Gustavo to stop complaining, and making sure that all of their bags and presents and accounted for—especially after having to stop to make sure all of James's hair care bags were found.

"Did you really need to bring that much stuff?" Jo asked. She brushed her long hair behind her ear. Her eyebrows rose as she looked over James's tower of bags while everyone else had only one large one and a carry-on. "We're just going to be here through New Year's."

"You're complaining about my bags when Kendall insisted on bringing that girly, pink bag with us?' James used his thumb to point to the backpack that rested on Kendall's back.

Kendall looked offended. He crossed his arms. "A fan gave it to me."

"And the last time you brought it, you singlehandedly got us stuck in that stupid plot of the guy who wanted to blow up the moon and take over the world," Katie said. "I keep telling you it's cursed."

"It's not cursed!" Kendall insisted.

Stephanie turned away from videotaping the crowds of people leaving the airport and turned back to her friends. She lowered her camera from her eye and gave Kendall a knowing look. "Or maybe you keep it around because you want it to be made fun of."

Kendall looked away but didn't say anything to deny her accusation.

"I just can't believe we're finally here in Australia!" Camille cried. She clasped her hands together. Her curls bounced around her face as she moved up onto her toes. "I've wanted to go here forever and now we're finally here! And for the holidays too."

"Not just for the holidays!" Gustavo declared, sticking his finger in the air.

"Here we go," James muttered.

The group watched as Gustavo started to pace. "This trip isn't just to be able to celebrate the holidays and hang out with your friends."

"Really?" Kendall smirked. "That's news to me." His smirk switched to a smile as James, Carlos, and Logan snickered beside him. Gustavo paused, lifted his middle finger so that it was in the shape of a 'V' and pointed them at his eyes before pointing at Kendall.

Kelly rolled his eyes despite dutifully writing down notes as Gustavo continued. "This isn't all fun and games. We're here to make sure that Big Time Rush manages to break through the international market. Breaking America is much harder than it is in other countries so it's good to get an idea of how things work out here. Now, the ARIAs are a big night where you will walk the red carpet, do on carpet interviews, and see the crowds that we're going to win over! It's the second step in my plan for world domination!"

"And, what are you going to be doing while we're working?" Logan asked.

Gustavo stared at him for a long moment. "Um, relax. Because it's my vacation!"

Katie shook her head as everyone else rolled her eyes. She should've known what Gustavo was up to. When he wasn't working, everyone else was. It wasn't like she didn't have her own ideas to push Big Time Rush forward. But it was supposed to be a vacation for all of them.

Katie looked at her watch, taking note of the time—after working out the time change.

Her best friend, Lizzie Zevon, was going to be in Australia in another ten hours after going with her brother, Dak, to visit family back in Ohio. Once the brother and sister arrived everyone would be together again. But that wasn't the part that held her attention. That gave her nervous butterflies she didn't know existed within her.

In the next half hour she and her friends would be traveling across the ANZAC Bridge—as was emphatically told to them being the only way out of the city—to the suburb or Rose Bay where their friends, the Jacksons, lived.

In the next half hour they would be spending the next two to three months celebrating the holidays and their ARIA nominations.

In the next half hour they would be able to hang out and be able to finally know what it was like to grow up in, their words, 'one of the best places in the world' while simultaneously get to understand them better.

Because if it was the 'best place in the world' then why was it that they only talked about certain aspects of living there? They all knew the reason why but hoped being there would make it easier for them to talk about. Having to live through a parent's death that young had to be hard.

To live in a place that constantly reminded them about it had to have been harder.

Like the others, Katie turned at the sound of tires squealing and a horn honking. Ronan McGuire pulled up to the curb in a large van. Katie's eyebrows rose in delighted surprise as she hurried over to it. She was a little disappointed to see there was no one else in the van with him but that was oaky, they were probably getting the house set up.

"You couldn't have gotten a better car?" Gustavo demanded as the others picked up their bags and walked over.

Ronan lifted an eyebrow as he climbed out of the driver's seat, sliding a pair of sunglasses down over his eyes. Katie realized then that she was already starting to sweat despite it only being the early hours of the morning. It probably didn't help that she was wearing a sweater to combat the coldness of the airline.

"Do you know any extravagant cars that can hold this many people?" Ronan shot back.

"Ignore him," Mrs. Knight said. "He's just cranky that he can't get first class transportation from the airport while the rest of us sat in coach."

"Not them," Carlos complained, pointing to Jo, Camille, and Stephanie, who grinned. "They were in Business class!"

"Hey, we paid for our own tickets," Jo defended herself. "You could've been up in Business class, too."

"No, we couldn't," James said.

"I could have," Katie boasted. Then she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "But mom wouldn't let me."

"That money is better spent on a college education," Mrs. Knight said. She reached out and smoothed down Katie's hair. "Besides, not being able to keep an eye on you in first class was more worrying than having you bored back in coach."

Chuckling, Ronan went over to the back of the van and opened the doors. That was typical of Gustavo, he had known and worked with the man for years and knew Gustavo wanted nothing more than to have the best of everything. He even complained if he had a Mercedes rather than a Mustang. "Why did I offer for you to stay at the house again?"

"Probably for the same reason that he politely agreed before deciding to stay in a hotel," Kelly said. She pulled down her own sunglasses and motioned towards the van. "Now can we get going? I'm going on a vacation too and I can't wait to start!"

"Oi!" Ronan turned around to look at an airport worker who directed the flow of traffic. He motioned towards the van. "Get going, you're holding up the bloody line!"

"You got it," Ronan called back. He slapped the side of the van. "Okay, everybody in!"

Katie hung back, waiting for her turn to put her bags into the back of the van. Kendall took her bag and carefully placed it into the back before he did the same with his. As he closed the doors he glanced over at her and Katie realized he probably had the same look in his eye that she did.

Of curiosity and worry; that even the shortest amount of time out of LA might've changed things.

Katie looked at her watch again.

Twenty-five minutes.

A/N: Finally got the first chapter up and I already feel like its better than the last time I attempted this idea. Some of the things that happened in this chapter—as well as in some other parts of the story—are things that I went through in my trip to Australia back in July.

*Again, we know that Mrs. Knight's name is Jennifer. Before that was revealed we had it where she went by 'Kacy' in terms of fulfilling the 'K' theme of their names we have it where her middle name is Kacy and some people call her that while others call her Jennifer.

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and I'll have it updated again soon.

-Riles